A man was blasted in the head during a drive-by shooting outside of the Bronx offices of State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie on Monday afternoon, police and law enforcement sources said.
Heastie (D-Bronx) — one of the three most powerful elected officials in the state and a leading advocate of New York’s lenient criminal justice reforms — is believed to have been in Albany for budget negotiations at the time.
At least 10 shots were fired from a white BMW sedan on Gun Hill Road and Fenton Avenue at around 3 p.m., with multiple gunmen believed to have opened fire outside the speaker’s one-story district office, sources said.
The 20-year-old victim, whose name was not disclosed, was brought to Jacobi Hospital Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, the NYPD confirmed. His condition was later upgraded to stable, sources said.
It’s unclear what sparked the violence, or if the victim was targeted.
A staffer for Heastie called 911 after the shots rang out, according to the sources.
At least 10 shots were fired from a white BMW sedan on Gun Hill Road and Fenton Avenue at around 3 p.m.
Reached by The Post shortly after the shooting, the caller would only say that, “I heard the shooting” before hanging up.
The soft-on-crime speaker did not return a request for comment.
Investigators are looking into whether the white BMW sedan involved in the shooting outside Heastie’s office is connected to an earlier shooting about a mile away, sources said.
In the first incident, two gunmen stepped outside of a car and opened fire at a group of people in front of 1121 East 225th Street at about 2:50 p.m. A third suspect also fired shots from outside the sunroof.
Nobody was injured in the first shooting.
Albany lawmakers have been stuck in negotiations over a late budget for weeks, but reportedly finally struck a deal Monday after Democratic supermajorities in the state Senate and Assembly agreed to eliminate a controversial bail-reform measure.
Police investigate the drive-by shooting. Peter Gerber
The victim was left with life-threatening injuries. Peter GerberHeastie, the Democratic leader of the state Assembly, has been a vocal supporter of the state’s controversial 2019 criminal justice reforms.
The changes eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and non-violent felony charges — which critics say has allowed more criminals back on the streets.
Both Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) had resisted Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to give judges more discretion over bail by rolling back a requirement they impose the “least restrictive” standards to ensure people return to court.
Sources said at least 10 shots were fired. Peter GerberHeastie has also backed the state’s “Raise the Age” law, which upped the age for criminal liability for suspects to 18. Since the law took effect in October 2019, the city has seen a spike in the number of underage homicide victims and suspects, NYPD data show.
Heastie’s own East Bronx assembly district has seen a spike in five of the NYPD’s seven major crimes so far this year, the statistics show.
Through Sunday, there were 550 major crimes reported in the 49th Precinct, which covers the Laconia neighborhood where Heastie’s office is, compared to 514 for the same period in 2022, a 7% increase.
The numbers are led by a 92% jump in burglaries, from 73 so far this year compared to 38 over the same period in 2022. There was a 13.5% spike in car thefts, the police data shows.
So far in 2023, cops reported 126 stolen cars in the precinct, compared to 111 over the same time span in 2022, the stats show.
It is unclear if Heastie was at the office at the time of the shooting. Hans PenninkA poll conducted by The Post in March found that even his constituents in the heavily-Democratic district don’t see eye-to-eye with Heastie.
Nearly 57% of voters there said judges should retain the authority to set bail for repeat offenders — a power that was stripped from jurists by the 2019 reforms.
Less than 29% of those polled were on board with the bail changes.
The majority of voters surveyed also voiced support for charter schools, even as Heastie moved to block a bid to lift the cap on them, the poll found.
Most constituents weren’t even aware that’s what Heastie was doing.
Additional reporting by Zach Williams






